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2005-11-19

I was wandering about the local shopping centre last Thursday, doing nothing in particular. Noticed a whole pile of cylindrical cannisters with pictures of a glowy round thing plastered on the front. Said cannister proclaimed to the world that it contained an Eggnite. "What is this thing you earth people call 'Eggnite'?" I hear you say. Eggnite is an egg shaped blob of translucent plastic that glows and changes colours. The egg has an internal NiMH battery (which the documentation claims to be Ni-HM ... but I'm going with NiMH) and comes with a charger plate upon which the device can sit. The charger plate has a standard tiny power supply (7.5V 300mA) that barely gets warm.

The damn ball glows and changes colour! Rich reds, deep blues, intense greens. Oh the joy! What a gloriouis piece of home art, symbolising the unification of all colours of the world joining together, glowing with hope, encased in plastic crap that is probably toxic as teflon and will soon kill us all but in the meantime we glow! A tribute to LED technology, rechargable batteries and their heavy metals, and, of course, the petrochemical industry without which we would live a whole lot longer.

Eggnite is made in China of course. But then, isn't everything? The company who exploits the poor Chinese workers in the hopes of greater profit from selling these wonderous eggs is called Smash and is 100% Australian owned, based in Melbourne. They make some other plastic crap but the Eggnite is truly stupendous and worth your visitation to the local enourmousW.

There is some similarity between Eggnite and the more internationally available Oggz, probably enough to get some lawyer excited.